A Tale Dark & Grimm

by Adam Gidwitz

  “I know.”

  “I just want to take it and throw it off of me. Make someone else feel it and hold it and carry it for a while.”

  The beds creaked and settled beneath them. They had been empty for a long time. At last, Hansel said, “Not just someone else.”

  “No,” Gretel agreed. “Not just someone else.”

  HANSEL and GRETEL and the Dragon

  Once upon a time, on a bright but sunless morning, Hansel and Gretel stood in the middle of the town of Wachsend’s tiny central square. Actually, it wasn’t even a square. It was more like a grassy hole between the tavern and the bakery. Hansel and Gretel wore their finest, most regal clothes, and, so that all could see them, they stood on a table that had been brought out from the tavern.

  The people of Wachsend gathered around the black-haired prince and the golden-blond princess and peered at them wonderingly, expectantly. This was the strangest thing to have happened in their little town in anyone’s memory. Not only was it unheard of for royalty to pay them a visit, unless in some grand procession that was just passing through (Hansel and Gretel had come alone—alone!), but the prince and princess had been the talk of the kingdom since their return. To see them? Here? Well, you can imagine that no self-respecting Wachsender would miss it.

  So they gathered in the grassy square, beneath birds that sang in the bare branches of the trees, and waited to hear what had brought the young prince and princess to their town.

  Hansel shifted uneasily from foot to foot as he looked at the expectant faces before him. Wachsend had been lucky so far. The dragon had not yet visited. But nonetheless the people were thin, from the lean times the dragon had brought to the kingdom. And they looked afraid. There seemed to be fear lingering at the corners of their mouths; a few even glanced up at the sky periodically. Hansel didn’t have to ask what they were looking for.

  Gretel saw all this, too. And then she began to speak to the people of Wachsend.

  She told them she knew they were scared. She told them that she was scared, too. She told them that fear would not save them from the dragon. She told them that only courage would save them. They must fight it, she said. They must fight it.

  Gretel spoke, and the people of Wachsend—grown men and women—listened to her. Not a single villager spoke, not a single villager moved. When she had finished, every person was totally still.

  And then someone shouted, “What?”

  “What did she say?” cried someone else.

  Gretel looked confused. Had they not been able to hear her?

  “She must be out of her mind!” another called.

  “She’s crazy!”

  “Is that child talking to us?”

  They had heard her. Gretel turned red. Hansel cut in. “If we do nothing,” he said, “the dragon will destroy the entire kingdom. We’ll die! We might as well fight it!”

  “Join us!” Gretel called desperately. “Do something that you will be able to tell your children, and your children’s children! Join us and fight the dragon!”

  A single person cheered.

  “We need you all!” Hansel said, taking encouragement from this one enthusiast. “Men and women, veterans and volunteers! Anyone who can shoot an arrow or hold a weapon! We need you all!”

  “I volunteer!” that single person called.

  “Yes!” cried another. “Let’s fight it!”

  The crowd began to hum with talk. Hansel and Gretel looked at each other. It was working. It was working.

  “Are you crazy?” suddenly rang out above the hum and din.

  Heads turned. Hansel and Gretel looked around for the source of the cry.

  “You people must be nuts!”

  It was a tall man, thin but muscular, with a bald head and a boxer’s nose. He stood near the back of the group.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he went on. “Have you seen the dragon? Have you fought it before? It will kill you. It will kill all of you!”

  “Shut up!” someone cried.

  “We’ve got to do something!” someone else called out.

  “Die? Is that what we have to do?” He paused. No one responded. “I’ve seen this beast. I was there when we fought it the first time. You can’t beat it. Arrows practically bounce off of it. It can kill four people at once, one with each of its four feet. And look at them!” he said, gesturing at Hansel and Gretel. “They’re children! Children! You’re going to follow children into battle against a dragon? Are you all out of your minds?!”

  There was a pause. The subjects of Wachsend turned to hear the prince and princess’s reply. Hansel was red in the face. Gretel was pale. They stared out over their subjects. All was quiet. The children opened their mouths. But neither had anything to say.

  “Ridiculous!” the bald man cried. And he turned his back on Hansel and Gretel and walked into the tavern. The door closed with a slam.

  “Wait!” Hansel shouted. “Wait!”

  But suddenly, people were dispersing, heading to the tavern or back to their homes.

  “Would you rather die in a tavern or on a field of battle?” Hansel cried.

  “A tavern!” someone shouted, and a few others laughed. More Wachsenders turned their backs on Hansel and Gretel.

  “Would you rather die having done nothing or having tried?”

  “Nothing!” someone called. But those who would have laughed were gone now. The remaining villagers were silent.

  “Will you follow us to fight the dragon?” Hansel asked.

  More silence.

  “If you will,” Gretel said, “meet us at the castle in three days’ time. Bring your weapon of choice. And,” she added, with as much strength as she had left, “bring your courage!”

  As Hansel and Gretel made their way out of Wachsend, Hansel turned to his sister. “Well,” he said, “that went terribly.”

  “Yes, it did,” she replied. They walked a little farther. Then she asked, “Ready to do it again?”

  He sighed. “I guess so.”

  And they set off for the next town.

  Three days later, Hansel and Gretel waited in the castle courtyard. Scattered around it were groups of volunteers. Small groups. No more than a handful apiece.

  “It’s early yet,” Gretel said. “More will come.”

  Hansel wrung his sweaty hands. “I suppose,” he said.

  The recruitment had been brutal. Town after town. “Are you crazy?” “What do you think you’re going to do?” “You’re just children!” “They’re just children!” “You’re going to follow children into battle?” There had been some who seemed ready to fight. A few. But most grew silent and wary when they heard they were expected to follow Hansel and Gretel—little Hansel and Gretel—to war.

  But as the hours went by in the castle courtyard, people came. Raw recruits, carrying hunting bows and even pitchforks, made their way through the great gates. But there were also groups that were obviously veterans—men with thick necks and wooden shields and shining swords. There were women, too. Archers, mostly; but also women carrying swords and spears. One had a rake.

  “We’d better get that one something proper to fight with,” Hansel said, pointing.

  Gretel chuckled and nodded.

  By late afternoon, the children felt better. Before them stood some five hundred soldiers. It wasn’t an enormous group. And it certainly wasn’t a pretty group. But it would do. It would do.

  The children’s chests swelled. They had done it. They had raised an army.

  The king and queen, however, were suddenly no longer so keen on Hansel and Gretel’s plan.

  “Wait, you’re going out?” said the queen when the children came before them that night. “You never said anything about you going out.”

  “They’re not going out,” the king said. “I will not allow it.”

  The queen looked at the two children as they stood before her, stone-faced and armed. “Please,” she said, “we’ve already lost you once. We couldn’t stand l
osing you again. Please. My children.” She began, softly, to cry.

  Their father came and knelt before them and took each one by the hand. “Please, my dears,” he said. “Understand. You are children. Why can’t you send someone else out in your stead?”

  “Father,” Gretel said, “maybe you should try to understand that yourself.”

  She and Hansel drew their hands away. Their mother began to cry louder.

  Hansel and Gretel went to the stable to ready the oxcart with the golden apples. The apples were held securely under a canvas tarp and—except for the one apple they had given to the poor family, and the other they had given to their mother—they were all there.

  As Gretel hitched the cart up to Betty, Hansel looked under the cover of the other. “What about the wine?” he said. “Maybe we could get the dragon drunk.” Gretel smiled. But he said, “Really. Why not?”

  “It couldn’t hurt, I guess,” Gretel said. So they hitched up Ivy, too.

  When the sky was black and dotted with stars and the moon was just beginning to creep above the horizon, big and round and white, the two children led the oxcarts out into the darkness. Hansel and Gretel looked back over their shoulders with pride. Behind them followed their army.

  They led them down a road to a large wood that stood not far from the castle. As they approached, the army began to whisper and point. The ground at the wood’s edge seemed to glow, as if the moon was reflected by the very soil. It shimmered and sparkled, an earthbound Milky Way. Was it magic? the soldiers asked one another. Or a sign from the dragon?

  But Hansel and Gretel confidently followed the path of white pebbles that they had scattered on the forest floor the day before, leading their army deep into the wood, to a large, grassy clearing.

  Here, for the first time, Hansel and Gretel told the army their plan. They would all stay in hiding until the dragon came for the bait. When it came—if it came—they would wait until it was distracted by the contents of the oxcarts. Then, when it was least ready to defend itself, they would spring out of their hiding places and attack.

  “You have every right to be afraid,” Gretel told them. “The dragon is big. The dragon is strong. The dragon has divided our families and taken our children and stolen our childhoods.

  “But that is no reason to cower. Until we stand up to him, our lives will remain shattered, our hearts will remain divided against themselves, our heads will remain severed from our bodies.”

  The moon was white and bright behind Gretel. Hansel stared at her. He didn’t quite understand what she was talking about.

  “But we will soon be healed,” she went on. “We will be healed. There will be blood first. But then there will be tears of joy.

  “For our kingdom!” she shouted.

  “And our families!” Hansel cried.

  “And our children!” they said together.

  The soldiers repeated their cry. In the silence that followed, all could hear the word children echoing off the thick trees and then away through the black wood.

  Gretel readied the oxcarts in the clearing. In the moonlight, the apples glowed golden, as if they possessed some fairy magic. Hansel unharnessed Ivy and Betty from the carts and tried to shoo them off. But the two oxen took to cropping grass nearby. Someone had to draw them by their halters far off into the woods, as far as possible from the field of battle.

  Don’t worry. Ivy and Betty will be fine.

  (I just wish I could say the same for everyone else.)

  Leaving both carts out in the clearing, the two children retreated to the cover of trees to watch, and wait.

  The forest made sounds. Branches creaking. Leaves whispering to one another. Bats flapping between trees, looking for prey. Hansel plucked the grass at his feet. Gretel fingered a small dagger strapped to her belt. The volunteer soldiers began shifting uneasily. One did not venture into a wood at night. Especially not when there was a dragon about. Sword handles became slick with sweat, bowstrings were pulled back and released, pulled back and released. An owl hooted. Far off, they could hear its great wings beating against the air.

  No.

  They were not the wings of an owl. The beats were too far apart. Too deep and distant. Hansel and Gretel peered out from under the cover of branches and leaves, but they could see nothing against the black, starry sky.

  And then there it was. In front of the moon. The long, thin silhouette of the dragon, its wings resting on the currents of night air.

  Its body was narrow, its four feet were tucked up underneath it, its long tail trailed out behind. Its wings were so thin that the moonlight shone through them. Stifled gasps arose from those who had never seen it. It was disgusting. It was enormous. From below, one could see the outline of its head, broad and viperlike. It looked nothing like the dragons in storybooks.

  Not even the dragon on the cover of this book, dear reader.

  Go ahead, take a look.

  That dragon, you see, was designed to alert you to the presence of a dragon in these pages. What it was not designed to do is make you sick with horror and awe. So the snakelike head, the eyes with no pupils, the translucent wings—those were all left off.

  You’re welcome.

  Gretel made a sign to the army. Arrows were notched. Bows began to bend.

  The dragon disappeared from sight. Down below, all waited. Then it appeared again over the clearing—a little lower this time. It had seen the gold. It was circling. Gretel could hear her brother’s breath coming quiet and quick. Hansel heard his sister’s heartbeat mingling with his own.

  The dragon flew over them again, lower, and was gone. Then again, lower still. Then again.

  Gretel gestured at the sky. Arrows were aimed. They waited. The dragon flew over again. It was close enough that they could see the delicate scales of its skin gleaming in the moonlight, and its enormous, jagged talons. It flew over again, and this time the leaves on the trees shook from its passage.

  The trees became still. They waited.

  And waited.

  No dragon.

  Hansel and Gretel and all their soldiers stared up at the black, starry sky. Empty, save for the moon.

  “What happened?” Gretel whispered to her brother. He shook his head and shrugged.

  They waited longer. The people began to feel uneasy. They let their bowstrings go slack. They rubbed the sweaty handles of their weapons, trying to find a good purchase. Where, they wondered, was the dragon?

  The darkness seemed to become heavier, more menacing. Glancing over their shoulders, they could see no more than a few feet into the forest.

  Then, through the silence, there ran a sudden whisper in the leaves. The whole army stopped breathing all at once. They stood still and listened. Hansel felt something beneath his feet. Carefully, he lowered himself and put his hand on the earth. He felt it again.

  “Gretel,” he whispered. “The ground is shaking.”

  “I know,” she whispered back. “I feel it.”

  It shook again. And again. Now all the men and women were looking frantically back and forth between the ground and the black forest that surrounded them.

  People began to whisper. “What is it?” and “What’s happening?”

  “Shhh!” Gretel hissed. “Quiet!”

  But they wouldn’t quiet. They were afraid.

  And then they saw it, weaving through the trees like an enormous snake with legs. Its wings were folded along its spine; its wide, viperlike head swung back and forth as it moved; and its golden eyes were shining in the moonlight.

  It had come to take them from behind. And it was moving fast. So fast that the first villagers barely had time to scream before it was upon them.

  Oh, I forgot to mention. The little kids? They really shouldn’t be here for this.

  Its mouth opened wide and snapped down on a woman with a bow. She hadn’t even moved to defend herself. There hadn’t been time. Now half of her was gone. Simultaneously, with a massive, taloned claw, the dragon swiped at a
man with an ax. He landed on his back, ten feet away, without his internal organs.

  With that, the forest awoke. Some of the people tried to fight the giant creature. Most tried to run. Occasionally, with a horrible, tearing sound, the dragon would kill someone else. Hansel grabbed Gretel and held her tightly. “Don’t go out there. It’ll kill us. All of us.” And then he called at the top of his lungs, “Retreat! Retreat! Retreat!”

  The woods became madness. Screams rose and died. People ran in all directions. “Retreat!” Hansel shouted. “Retreat!”

  “It’s no good,” Gretel said to him. “We’ve got to go.”

  “Where?” Hansel asked.

  “To the dragon.”

  “What?”

  “To lure it away. Run out ahead and make it chase us.”

  “It’ll kill us,” Hansel said.

  Gretel set her mouth. “It’s us or them.”

  Hansel took a deep breath. He nodded at Gretel. Then he stood up and made his way toward the sounds of death.

  As he came near, he saw a man and a woman hiding behind a tree. The dragon was on the other side, its head moving this way and that, trying to see where they had gone. They had no weapons—they were shaking so badly they’d dropped them at their feet. Suddenly the dragon darted to one side of the tree. They froze.

  Hansel cried out. The dragon turned in time to see Hansel scoop up a fallen spear and with one motion launch it the dragon’s way. It glanced harmlessly off the dragon’s black, snakelike scales. Hansel stopped. He stared.

  Oh, he thought. And then he thought, That’s bad.

  Hansel spun to his left into the woods. The dragon followed.

  “Get away!” Gretel bellowed at the remaining troops. “Get away!” And they did. They ran. On the ground were many bodies. But many more were now escaping through the dark underbrush.